Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend has made his point well, but I do not think that anyone is contemplating leaving the EU before 14 June—if, indeed, ever—when key decisions will be made at the Trade Council in the EU. If that process is successful, it will allow negotiations to be launched during the President’s visit to Europe for the G8 summit a few days later. We are getting on with all these matters now.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I apologise on behalf of the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), who regrets that he is unable to be here today. I also thank the Foreign Secretary and you, Mr. Speaker, for acknowledging notification of his absence earlier.

An EU-US free trade agreement will be worth an average of £466 a year to every family in the country. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that if his Back Benchers and some of his ministerial colleagues achieve their dream of leaving the EU, there will be little chance of our securing a similar bilateral UK-US free trade agreement?

[Mr Hague]

I am not going to speculate about that. We are going to make a success of negotiations between all the members of the EU, including the United Kingdom and the United States. That is our objective. As several Members have observed, this would be a transformational trade agreement, and I hope that there is a strong commitment to it in all parts of the House.